


One hundred and seventy-one years

by mjeanuniverse



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:33:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjeanuniverse/pseuds/mjeanuniverse
Summary: Dwalin never would have thought he'd have to wait one hundred and seventy-one years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A little one shot that has pinged around my brain for years, just not one hundred and seventy-one years

A hundred and seventy-one years is a long time to wait. It is almost the exact number of years in age Dwalin had been during the Battle of Five Armies. What an awful, bloody affair that had been. Not the fruitless carnage and needless slaughter of the Battle of Azanulbizar, mind, but still a high price indeed had been paid in blood that day to reclaim the lost dwarven kingdom of Erebor.

No one knows the price in blood Dwalin had paid that day. None save himself and one other. And Mahal, of course. Perhaps his brother, Balin, had known from the very start, but he had held his tongue and his counsel. The brothers had never discussed the matter. 

Heaving a huge sigh, Dwalin, now aged 340, has lived longer than any dwarf has ever been known to live. Dwalin muses it is one last joke Mahal is having at his expense. The ancient dwarf, once so strong and tall and board, wizen with age now, and his blue-black beard and hair gone snow white and wispy, is comforted only by the fact that it will soon be over, and he can finally make amends to right a dreadful and cowardly wrong. 

The shame of his past cowardice is a cloud that has darkened Dwalin’s days for many decades. It does not matter that he had been young dwarf, a lad of eighty-seven years at the time. Dis had only been a few years older, a dam of ninety-one. She had understood and had remained silent despite the rantings and threats from her older brother. Dis, wanting to spare Dwalin the wroth of Thorin’s ire at their carelessness, had taken their secret to her grave. 

Now, Dwalin reckons he is not long from his own grave, but the thought gives him comfort as he hopes to finally set things to right. To stand before Mahal and claim what is his. One hundred and seventy-one years is a long time to wait. 

Within dwarven myth, it had been long held that one’s father is the first person to greet a newcomer to the Halls of Waiting, so when his time finally comes, Dwalin is hesitant to crack his eyes open. Chiding himself for more cowardice, Dwalin flings open his eyes wide, and finds himself staring directly into Fundin’s rich, chocolate brown eyes. Sitting up so rapidly that he almost cracks his forehead against his father’s, Dwalin throws his arms around the elder dwarf. Father and son share an embrace so fierce it would have broken many a lesser dwarf’s spine. 

When the two finally break apart, Dwalin’s eyes are wet with tears and his heart full of trepidation. Dwalin glances around, and he recognizes many of the faces surrounding him, his brother, Balin, his grandfather, Farin. Even his uncle, Groin, and his cousins Oin and Gloin. Then there is Thror and Thrain, Thorin and Frerin. The mighty and proud dwarven warrior, Dwalin, second son of Fundin, stands trembling and afraid, his eyes seeking the one face he cannot seem to find. 

“Mister Dwalin?” Kili asks, puzzlement clear in his voice. 

“Where…” Dwalin tries but his voice fails him. Dwalin finally croaks. “Where is your brother?” 

Frowning fiercely, the dark-haired youth does not reply, but the glance he throws over this shoulder gives him away.

“He is still asleep. No one has ever claimed him.” Pain is evident in tight way the words squeeze from Kili’s throat. 

“Not in life. Not in death.” Thorin’s deep baritone supplies. 

Rallying Dwalin makes another attempt. Voice firm and loud. “Where is my son?” 

A stunned silence meets his question. 

“A hundred and seventy-one years is long enough to wait, isn’t it?” Dwalin says with tears constricting his own throat. 

“Well, yeah…” Kili trails off, clearly confused. 

Approaching the supine figure, Dwalin softly calls, “Fili? Fili, lad, look at me.” 

The second time his name is called, the blond dwarf’s eyelashes flutter then his eyes blink open. 

Yes, one hundred and seventy-one years is more than enough time to wait.


	2. Said the wrong thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kili's POV

Rage, red hot, blinding rage. After seeing the blue of his beloved brother’s eyes again for the first time in a hundred and seventy-one years, his vision blurs into the same burning hot anger. The same blinding rage that had overtaken his brain all those years ago during of the Battle of Five Armies.

With a full-throated roar of “You orc shagging piece of shit”, he launches himself at his old mentor, his old weapons master, a dwarf he had admired only half a notch less than his own uncle. 

While raining blows down on the board back and shoulders of the other dwarf, Kili continues to scream, “you orc shagging piece of shit! You miserable orc shagging piece of shit!” The hot-headed younger dwarf seems to be oblivious to the fact that Dwalin makes no move to protect himself from either the physical or verbal assault. 

“Enough!” The low growl of his uncle sounds in his left ear. “You’re scaring your brother.” 

Concern for his brother is the only thing capable of penetrating the haze of rage in Kili’s brain for him to regain sufficient control and to still his flying fists. His uncle uses the split second to forcibly wrest the boy away from what had been one of his oldest and closest friends. 

While his hands are still, Kili’s words are not, and he continues in a quieter but still shaking voice. “You miserable…you let him go unclaimed. For eighty two years! Fatherless!” Kili fairly spits the last word. It is the worst insult a dwarf can call another. 

“I thought he couldn’t possibly be mine. The blonde hair…I assumed he wasn’t mine.” Dwalin whispers, but he is not talking to Kili. No, he is speaking to no one save the blonde dwarf before him. “Forgive me. I didn’t know.”

Because Thorin’s arms still encircle Kili’s shoulders, keeping the younger dwarf’s arms pinned to his side, the dark-haired dwarf is only able to kick out. His voice rises to a shriek again. “Forgive you?! You must be joking? Eighty two years of shame heaped upon his head while he was alive? Forgive you? Bah!!” 

At this point, one kick lands a savage blow to Dwalin’s bowed head and topples the big dwarf over. “Then it takes you a hundred and seventy-one years after he died to get here? I’ve been watching over him for a hundred and seventy-one years! Forgive you? Go sod off!”

“Wait…if I’ve been here that long, and you’ve been here that long? Then we both died in the battle?” Fili wears the same face he had always worn when he had worried over one of Mr. Balin’s more complex diplomatic scenarios. Kili stops struggling against Thorin’s hold as Fili’s expression morphs from confusion to understanding then to naked pain. 

“You didn’t survive the battle? But you had a chance… I gave you a chance to get away. I did everything I could so that you would live…” 

Kili recognizes the pinched look of bewildered pain on his brother’s face, and the anger instantly drains from him. He had seen that same expression on Fili’s face many times in their youth. Each time Thorin had hurled the insult of fatherless at Fili. Each time Fili had been excluded from some special event or ceremony because he had no father. But this time, it was he, Kili, who is the reason for the agonized look on his brother’s face. It guts the young dwarf.  


“I needed to avenge you.” Kili mumbles, but the words sound hollow even to his own ears.

“Avenge me?” Fili asks incredulous. “Your survival would have been enough.” 

“Thorin died, too!” Kili snaps back, defensive now and employing a tried and true tact of reflection and redirection. 

“No.” The blonde breathes looking from his brother to their uncle. “Not both of you?” 

Kili sees Thorin’s eyes roll in exasperation, and it dawns on the younger dwarf that possibly he had said the wrong thing. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I expanded this from a one shot. I am not entirely happy with this chapter, but it will have to do until I get to some of the other's POVs.


	3. It is not his secret to tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Balin's recollections

_Balin remembers Fili’s birth. After a fruitless, 12 month-long, search for Thrain, Thorin, Balin and Dwalin had trudged back to Ered Luin through the snows of early winter to find Dis heavily pregnant. Balin had never seen Thorin so apoplectic with rage. What with his father missing, now his unwed and unbonded sister greeting him with a belly swollen with child? _

__

__

_Balin wonders if Thorin’s outrage had contributed to Dis going into labor early. Balin believes had he not been so focused on tempering Thorin’s anger that he would have paid more attention to his own brother’s elation to the news of Dis’s pregnancy, and then Dwalin’s abrupt reversal when he first saw the newborn. Dwalin had taken one look at the blonde hair on the babe’s head and had stormed out, leaving for Ered Luin for the next two decades. _

_ __ _

_ __ _

_Balin recalls Dis’s utter humiliation at her son’s naming day when no dwarf had stepped forward to claim the newborn as his own. Thorin had grudgingly proclaimed the babe to be of the house of Durin, but his disapproval had radiated off him throughout the grim ceremony. _

_ __ _

_ __ _

_By the time Dwalin had returned to the Blue Mountains, Dis had already married. She had chosen a handsome, dark eyed and haired tinker, some relation to Bofur and Bifur with a brilliant smile. Her husband, a decent enough sort, quick to laugh and quick to anger. He gave Dis a son, a proper son, not some fatherless mongrel like her first. He had proudly proclaimed Kili as his own for all the dwarves of Ered Luin to see. Thorin had beamed with pride to finally have a legitimate heir. _

_ __ _

_ __ _

__

__

Upon his arrival in the Halls of Waiting, Balin is overjoyed to see his father, Fundin, again. The two hold each other for a long time. Once the pair breaks apart, Balin reunites with many of his kin, the last of which had been Thorin and Kili. 

Kili enthusiastically bombards him with a million questions about Khazad-dum, about the other members of Thorin’s company, of the Hobbit, Mr. Boggins, etc, etc. The boy’s rapid-fire barrage leaves the Lord of Moria’s head spinning. Thorin just grins and smiles fondly as his sister-son’s antics. It is only when Balin hesitantly asks about Fili that Kili’s playful demeanor vanishes, and Thorin’s happy expression sours into his familiar frown. 

Uncle and nephew lead Balin to the place where the blonde lies, silent and unmoving as a stone. Thrain sits by the boy’s side, and Fundin joins him, brushing a stray strand of blonde hair away from Fili’s forehead. 

“Here he is…still…just…” Kili trails off. 

“Unclaimed.” Thorin supplies, shrugging. 

Balin flinches at the casual indifference in Thorin’s tone. Apparently, his king had still not forgiven the boy for the sin of being born fatherless. When his eyes fall back onto Thrain and Fundin; suddenly, several random pieces of information click together in his brain. He scans the rest of the faces surrounding them.

“Where’s Dwalin? Is he here yet?”

“No, not yet.” Fundin reassures his eldest son. When father and son lock eyes, Balin knows. And he knows with shocking clarity. He cannot believe he had missed it this whole time. How had he missed it for all those decades? All the little signals that stood in plain sight the whole time:

• Several weeks after Thorin and Dwalin’s departure from the Blue Mountains, Dis casually announces her pregnancy. Speculation is relentless about the possible identity of the father, but Dis had remained unfazed by the wagging tongues. 

• Dwalin’s puzzling and fierce reaction upon first seeing Dis’s tiny, blonde-haired babe.

• Dis’s stoic refusal to name the father even under Thorin’s most blistering tirades. 

• His brother’s stiff and strained relationship with Dis after his eventual return to the Blue Mountains two decades after Fili’s birth.

• The way Dwalin would go out of his way to avoid interacting with little blonde dwarfling. 

• Finding Dwalin at the foot of Ravenhill, his clothing soaked through with Fili’s blood, clutching the boy’s broken body after the Battle of Five Armies.

• Dwalin’s complete emotional breakdown upon Dis’s arrival in Erebor after Dain’s coronation where Dis had insisted he return with her to the Blue Mountains. 

Standing the Halls of Waiting with his kin, Balin holds his tongue. It is not his secret to tell. Fundin shares the sentiment with his eldest son. Both would keep Dwalin’s secret until his arrival in the Halls of Waiting. Neither would have guessed that they would have such a long time to wait. 

_ __ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has taken so long to post an update.


End file.
